Neroli Sheldon

Attracting and Retaining Staff: The Role of Branding and Industry Image

In increasingly competitive labour markets, attracting and retaining talent has become a prime concern of organisations. Employers need to understand the range of factors that influence career decision making and the role of employer branding in attracting human capital that best fits and contributes to the strategic aims of an organisation. This chapter identifies the changing factors that attract people to certain employment and industries and discusses the importance of aligning employer branding with employee branding to create a strong, genuine and lasting employer brand. Whilst organisations have long used marketing and branding practices to engender loyalty in customers, they are increasingly expanding this activity to differentiate organisations and make them attractive from an employee perspective. This chapter discusses employer branding and industry image as two important components of attraction strategies and describes ways companies can maximise their brand awareness in the employment market to both current and future employees.

Women and engineering: a workforce development issue

Engineers are critical to the economic innovation and productivity of nations through the production of knowledge, patents and technology as well as by driving sustainable social and economic development. However there is a growing worldwide scarcity in almost all engineering fields and, while the career is generally well-remunerated with good career prospects, there is an under-representation of women studying or working in engineering roles. This chapter discusses the role of early socialisation, schooling and university education in contributing to the low levels of girls participating in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects needed to study engineering and the gender disparity in engineering courses as well as the leaky pipeline of qualified women in the engineering profession. The chapter also describes a range of initiatives that attempt to address these issues that have resulted in skills wastage and engineering skills shortages in most countries.

What do young Australian engineers want? Strategies to attract this talent to less glamorous industries

Chapters in Book 1 of this two-volume set explored literature pertaining to the shortage of engineers in Australia, the ageing engineering workforce, issues of skilled migration, and career development and pathways. The companion chapter to this one in Book 1 explored attraction and image issues of certain industries that required a pipeline of engineers. This chapter will reflect on our research with final-year engineering students in Australian universities and TAFE colleges regarding their career aspirations, industries and/or organisations that they identify as attractive employers, and their perceptions of a low-profile industry, namely the Australian rail industry. This chapter will also discuss specific, evidence-based strategies and activities to enhance the image and attraction of low-profile industries.

Enhancing Career Pathways

Providing explicit career pathways has long been recognised as an important strategy for attracting and retaining employees. In this chapter we consider the strategic and practical implications of research conducted for the Australasian rail industry in developing explicit career pathways for current and potential employees. The chapter will use the experience of the Australasian rail industry to provide a contextual case. However the strategies and practices for enhancing career pathways are applicable to other industries and organisations, particularly those with a relatively low brand image.

Career Paths: Challenges and Opportunities

Fundamental changes in the composition and functions of organisations have led to blurring of organisational boundaries and changing employment relationships. The notion of a career path has become increasingly ambiguous, with individuals taking increased responsibility for managing their own careers. Furthermore, the growing individualisation of employment policies and non-traditional employment has implications for the management of people at work, particularly the planning and management of employee careers. Career paths benefit both employee and employer. They can strengthen the psychological contract between employer and employee, ensure the employee is not restricted to a particular job, career path or organisation, as well as ensuring employees have the skills needed both now and in the future to contribute to organisational success. This chapter draws together relevant theories on how organisations treat the notion of career paths and how they implement strategies that will engender employee loyalty, create genuine career development and meet organisational objectives.

Female Engineering Students

There are still relatively few women in engineering studies in Australia. In overall completions, women are outnumbered by men 5:1 in Engineering and related technologies. At the same time many industries such as mining, construction and rail are in a growth phase. However, the rail industry, particularly, is not attracting sufficient engineers and skilled technicians from within the Australian labour market and is facing widespread retirements from an ageing workforce. Rail is thus trying to actively attract early and mid-career engineers and skilled technical workers and is in competition for talent with other industries.